3 Ways to Expand Your Fan Base Using Social Media
Today, we have a guest post from Andrew Charlton, owner of Gold Shore Records, that speaks to three ways to help grow your fan base via social media. (Sure, there are 100′s of ways, but I couldn’t possibly ask Andrew to write about all of them in one guest post. So he’ll touch on three.) Take it away, Andrew:
What is a musician without any fans? Who will buy your albums? Who will attend your gigs? As a musician it is imperative that you are always thinking of how to extend your reach and with social media there are now platforms to share your music with a larger audience than you could ever dream of…
Social Media is most certainly not a fad, and if all your fans are there, it would seem a pretty good idea for you to be there too. You cannot expect to just create a Facebook or Twitter account and instantly have masses of people following you. You have to interact, be personal, and lure them into your fan page. In this article I’ll share with you three ways you can effectively drive more fans to your social media networks through creating a good first impression, connecting with people who share similar interests, and using video marketing to build hype and personally engage with your fans.
1. Create an Enticing Facebook Landing Page
If Facebook were a country it would be the 4th largest in the World, so you have a free opportunity to share your music on a global scale. People who land on your page want to know about you immediately (the world of social media is an impatient one) so to increase your conversion rate from visitors to fans you should make the first page a visitor lands on as compelling as you can.
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Crowdsourced Choir + Phat Video Editing
Eric Whitacre, composer, conductor, lecturer, and model, invited anyone who felt like it to perform one of his choral pieces…via YouTube. 2,000 plus singers from across the globe later, and the Virtual Choir 2.0 video is almost done.
Below is a video of Eric at TED presenting a teaser of the project. As good as the musical piece is, I have to say, it wouldn’t be nearly as compelling without the video editor’s incredible job mashing it all together. Worth checking out. (If you want to skip to the two videos he presents, go to 6:30 for Virtual Choir 1.0, and 12:00 for Virtual Choir 2.0.)
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Best Facebook Song EVER?
I finally finished the track and accompanying music video for the Mark Zuckerberg Facebook rap, Zuck, On Facebook. Check it out. (If you like it, please pass it on — it’s just in time for Oscars and the Social Network.)
The TRACK:
The MUSIC VIDEO:
Even More Ways to Zuck-Out:
- Check out the lyrics and background story here
- Check out the YouTube video here (and please “Like” it)
- Get the free download here (or, if you feel charitable, name your own price)
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Need Your Feedback: “Zuck, On Facebook”
As I recently mentioned, I’ve got a DRAFT of Zuck, On Facebook, my Mark Zuckerberg nerdcore rap ditty. It was a fun project, and I don’t really know what to make of it. In a couple days, I’ll release a final version, plus a YOUTUBE VIDEO a few days after that.
So, here it is:
Boo-yah…
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New Facebook Rap Almost Finished…
After The Social Network won a Golden Globe for best picture, I was inspired to write a rap (a first for me) from the point of view of Mark Zuckerberg, in response to the movie, the bad press, the law suits, etc etc.
The poor 20-something billionaire deserves a voice, after all….so I thought I’d help with the next best thing — a phat beat. Other song projects “Avalanche”, “In 9 Months”, and “Thank You” have since been placed on the back burner in favor of attempting to complete both a track and video for my new rap, “Zuck, On Facebook“. Amazingly, despite my long-standing history of taking inordinate amounts of time to complete tracks, I’m virtually done. All that’s left is mixing in a guest appearance by Girl Crusade in the bridge, a last-minute collaboration we recorded just last night.
The mix should be completed tomorrow, and I’m hoping beyond hope to shoot and edit a basic music video as well, all by next Monday, in time for the Oscars a week later. Is it possible? Barely. Wish me luck as a slave away in my attic…
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Why Remixes Help Promote Your Music & Five Tips to Get DJ’s Interested
[Note from Mike: Have you gotten any DJs to remix your song lately? Me neither. Marcus Taylor of TheMusiciansGuide.co.uk smacks us with some key reasons why we should, and some tips on how to do it. Pretty interesting stuff. (His site is actually full of such wisdom, as well as band resources -- worth checking out.) Take it away, Marcus.]
Why would you want your song remixed?
While it’s often considered best marketing practice to zone in as much as possible on marketing to your target audience (ie. Promote your music to people who are most likely to become a fan) in reality this theory shoots itself in the foot. I, and many of my peers on this planet are not fans of a single genre, but a range of genres in various environments. Remixes are great for promoting your music for one reason – they help you to reach another artist’s audience. Similarly to collaborating, or producing a cover song, remixes allow you to gain full attention of the DJ’s audience – which is often not solely made up of fans of that DJ’s genre.
For example, take a DJ that regularly remixes music from non-electronic genres such as DJ Tiesto, his remixes of Imogen Heap, Tegan and Sara, The Killers, and Chris Burns helped those artists create enourmous hype around their releases. In fact, I bought Tegan and Sara’s album after listening to the Tiesto remix – and they’re an acoustic act. Remixes help you to reach new and diverse audiences with your music that you might have otherwise missed.
How do you get your song remixed?
So how can you go about getting a remix? Here are five tips to encourage DJ’s to remix your music that I learnt from a) being a DJ looking for music to remix and b) trying to hire DJ’s to remix releases by artist’s that I used to manage.
1. Offer a remix pack to make your song easy and accessible to remix
When a DJ wants to remix a song they need the individual files that make up the orginal version in separate tracks, sometimes you can get away with just an instrumental version of the song but that approach is very limiting. Put an easily downloadable ‘DJ remix pack’ on your website that contains all of the separate files in wav format along with a document that outlines the key, tempo, and any other details relevant to the remixer. By making the DJ’s life easier you will massively increase the likelihood of getting a remix.
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How to Move Your MySpace Friends to Facebook
MySpace is in trouble. And potentially, so are your Myspace profile and Myspace friendships. It’s time to move your Myspace friends to Facebook.
If you’ve invested any time, energy, or funds into building a network of friends and fans for a Myspace profile, that can be somewhat alarming. Granted, MySpace will probably still be around for a while, but the constant bugs, the insane navigation, the banner ad cornucopia, and the now 47% smaller workforce maintaining the site, don’t lend a lot of confidence in the likelihood of site improvement over time.
Import Myspace Friends to Facebook
Yeah right, I wish. Things are never quite so easy. You can only indirectly plead with your MySpace friends to find you and “Like” you in Facebook. Fortunately, Myspace offers several ways to help you jump ship, which I describe below. If you’re like me, it’s been a long, long time since you’ve used any of Myspace’s functionality, and some guidance will help.
Ask Your Myspace Friends to Move to Facebook via Myspace Email
The best way to get a Myspace friend to connect with you in Facebook is to send them a Myspace email asking them to do so. It’s a little tedious, since you can only email a maximum of 20 friends simultaneously, and have to enter each email address individually, but it’s the best way to reach your most important fans. (Not recommended for all 50,000 of your friends, you spammer, you.)
Here’s how:
- Log into (or Login to?) your Myspace profile
- At the very top of the page, move your mouse over the phrase “My Stuff” (located next to “Discover”)
- At the far right side of the pop-up module, click on the “Compose” link under “Mail”
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12 Bands to Check Out in 2011
[It's Guest Post time. There is so much incredible new music hitting Pandora/Last.fm/Jango/Spotify stations, I'm dizzy. Here to offer some steadying guidance is music super-enthusiast C. Loren Bishop with a guest post calling out just a few bands worth checking out this year. Know of more bands we should check out? Add it to the comments section. Take it away, CLB.]
Each year, several hot music groups go from relative obscurity to musical stardom. So far, quite a few have been noticed as break-out bands to watch in 2011. If you’ve missed any of the groups on this list, look for their videos online – YouTube or the VLC media player can help you watch videos no matter which format was used to create the file. Whichever way you do it, make sure you check out these artists.
1. Wild Beasts
This art-rock band features glam renditions of songs similar to Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes with attention-grabbing tempo changes and glistening guitar leads. However, the most noticeable part of this English band’s sound is the shrill, falsetto voice of Hayden Thorpe that’s perfectly accompanied by the deeper tenor of bassist Tom Fleming. Check out: “All the King’s Men.”
2. Empire Of The Sun
This glam duo has been attracting dedicated fans with their over-the-top shows and outer-space themes. Who wouldn’t love their superhero names? With Emperor Steele and Lord Littlemore taking center stage, the audience is guaranteed a thrill. Don’t miss the title track “Walking on a Dream.”
3. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti
Once a cult figure, Ariel Pink is now recording with a real band, a real producer, and in a real studio. As the world has discovered Ariel, expect this band’s popularity to grow. Check out the song (and album cover) “Round and Round.”
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